Anger doesn't seem to get any respect. Many people try to avoid or repress the negative emotions like anger, envy, and jealousy, because they can take over your mind and influence you into negative behavior. However, some people get some sort of satisfaction from these emotions, in spite of the negative influence they have on our minds. Repressing these emotions can lead to extreme behavior when they finally do surface, so repression is not a satisfactory option. Satisfying these emotions as they arise makes you a slave to them with only short term satisfaction and often with long term problems that will have to be cleared up. So is there another way of dealing with the wrathful emotions? Indeed, there is.

One aspect of the Left Hand Path is to examine the more negative aspects of your personality in order to understand them and transform them into something more satisfactory, so let's take a quick look at them to get some understanding, and then apply a bit of reasoning that may lead to a way to transform them.

The wrathful emotions are based upon dislike, and are useful in removing or getting around unsatisfactory obstacles. You can approach obstacles from an intelligent manner and skillfully resolve them, or you can try to use force to smash through them. Anger will give you an adrenaline rush that could be channeled into force, but is there another way to channel this extra energy? Let's examine anger a bit more closely:

When you are angry, the accompanying adrenaline rush not only energizes your body, but it also energizes your mind. Before you became angry, your mind was relatively clear and calm, like a lake or a slow moving stream. However, a myriad of energized emotions screaming for attention can quickly turn the calm waters into a cloudy, boiling rage that is anything but clear. {Blind rage} With an energized body and a clouded mind, it would seem that the option of dealing with obstacles by force would be the only way, as it is difficult to go the intelligent route by examining the obstacle when your mind in such a state. Your clouded state of mind is an obstacle to the intelligent route. {Wait a minute--aren't wrathful emotions useful in removing or getting around obstacles? Indeed they are!}

Your first obstacle to deal with is your clouded, boiling raging mind. Direct the energy from the adrenaline rush there first, and remove the clouded state of blind rage from your mind first. Then you will be able to think clearly enough to take the intelligent route for the external problem. {You apply Greater Black Magick to yourself, first, and then you turn to the objective universe }

Anger is a quick and strong emotion. It can quickly silence the other disturbing emotions within your mind to still the boiling activity impeding your ability to think clearly. Once the mind has been cleared, the rush of energy can then be channeled into mental activity in order to find an intelligent solution to the external problem, instead of resorting to force. You have overcome not just one obstacle, (the external problem,) but two obstacles (counting the obstacle of the clouded mind.) When you realize and appreciate benefits of this, the disturbing emotions will welcome and respect anger, and energy will not need to be expended in silencing these disturbing emotions, as they will be pacified by anger. However, when this point has been reached, anger doesn't seem to resemble what it used to be. It has transformed so much that even the name "anger" doesn't seem to fit anymore. So, what has this emotion formerly-known-as-anger become? What name would be suitable for this force that can quickly clear the mind, yet super energize it as well? {Wow! It sounds almost magickal, huh?} I have some names for what a thought-pacifying-mind energizing force can be used as a basis for, including:

The only real name that I have come across to describe this transformed anger is Great Mirror Wisdom. (If you know of any other names for it, please let me know.) Whatever you may call it, it can be the platform/basis for all of the spiritual practices listed above and more, as well as the more down-to-earth tool for dealing with mundane obstacles in everyday life. So, even if you are not spiritually or magically inclined, it is still worthwhile to apply Hephæstus' Forge to your anger and transform it for the clarity of mind and problem-solving ability it gives in everyday matters, as well as liberation from being enslaved to its more base expression. Free your mind!

This is an interesting topic. It seems to me something like what a Sage of Mars might say, if there were any so dedicated.

It is in one sense genius to use the anger to undermine itself. Personally though, I find that anger, if it ever arises, is part of those forces which disturb mind and not those which clear it. This could be changed with practice, but I don't have the reserves of rage to fuel such an experiment.

To my consideration, anger is a mayfly. It is an emotional and physiological force that comes forth with such a clamor that all others are silenced - if only for that brief moment. But a day of reflection, or a minute, or even just a few seconds - clears that force away again. To turn anger into a tool would mean that we must store up that brightly burning and evaporating stuff within our soul, so as to call it forth when we will it. I suspect this process itself could have serious consequences so please do use caution. And if we are to master calling forth our anger, we should also have to raise our capacity for sustaining the emotion, so as to not exhaust all of our new power in one glorious blow against the enemy of the moment. Not all adversaries can be downed so quickly, so we must pace our expenditures wisely so as to not be left cooking dinner over a spent hearth.

If we want to train our internal forces to work for us - should we not start with Anxiety? It is maintained, and increased of itself without end. If we were able to tame it and turn it toward our goals, we should have an inexhaustible source of power.

Art thou pale for wearinessOf climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionlessAmong the stars that have a different birth, -And ever-changing, like a joyless eyeThat finds no object worth its constancy?-Percy Bysshe Shelley

This is an interesting topic. It seems to me something like what a Sage of Mars might say, if there were any so dedicated.

It is in one sense genius to use the anger to undermine itself. Personally though, I find that anger, if it ever arises, is part of those forces which disturb mind and not those which clear it. This could be changed with practice, but I don't have the reserves of rage to fuel such an experiment.

To my consideration, anger is a mayfly. It is an emotional and physiological force that comes forth with such a clamor that all others are silenced - if only for that brief moment. But a day of reflection, or a minute, or even just a few seconds - clears that force away again. To turn anger into a tool would mean that we must store up that brightly burning and evaporating stuff within our soul, so as to call it forth when we will it. I suspect this process itself could have serious consequences so please do use caution. And if we are to master calling forth our anger, we should also have to raise our capacity for sustaining the emotion, so as to not exhaust all of our new power in one glorious blow against the enemy of the moment. Not all adversaries can be downed so quickly, so we must pace our expenditures wisely so as to not be left cooking dinner over a spent hearth.

If we want to train our internal forces to work for us - should we not start with Anxiety? It is maintained, and increased of itself without end. If we were able to tame it and turn it toward our goals, we should have an inexhaustible source of power.

Anger is for getting around or through obstacles, the main one being a boiling mind. Anger only needs to arise when your mind is boiling in order to still it.

That would certainly be an interesting technique. Forgive me if I sounded dismissive, I'm actually quite curious to know more. Have you had much success with it? I have never been much disposed to feeling anger, so I've had little chance to harness it the way you're speaking of here. I suppose my anger has always been pre-empted by some other mechanism. But that is no matter, we all have different compositions. I've just done a short meditation to find where the capacity for anger lies within myself, and I do sense the red and raw power there. Perhaps it can be made use of more effectively. I shall have to remember to try it the next time I am swarmed by distractions.

Art thou pale for wearinessOf climbing heaven, and gazing on the earth, Wandering companionlessAmong the stars that have a different birth, -And ever-changing, like a joyless eyeThat finds no object worth its constancy?-Percy Bysshe Shelley

That would certainly be an interesting technique. Forgive me if I sounded dismissive, I'm actually quite curious to know more. Have you had much success with it? I have never been much disposed to feeling anger, so I've had little chance to harness it the way you're speaking of here. I suppose my anger has always been pre-empted by some other mechanism. But that is no matter, we all have different compositions. I've just done a short meditation to find where the capacity for anger lies within myself, and I do sense the red and raw power there. Perhaps it can be made use of more effectively. I shall have to remember to try it the next time I am swarmed by distractions.

I'm really not that disposed to rage myself, either. I had to trace it down through meditation and identify it as the obstacle buster, and had to compare my own coping mechanisms and compare and contrast them to how others react to the same situation in order to pinpoint, identify, and describe it.

The only real name that I have come across to describe this transformed anger is Great Mirror Wisdom. (If you know of any other names for it, please let me know.)

How about "motivation"? At the heart of most if not all motivation to take action, there's a dissatisfaction with the status quo which outweighs the subjective benefits of inaction.

The dominant RHP paradigms in which society and language have been stewing for uncounted generations leave a stigma on describing one's emotions as "anger". Thus a less-biased view of "anger" as a family of related emotions, divorced from that stigma, would likely include many if not all of the underlying motives to non-habitual action.

As an example, contrast the habitual action of getting up and going to work every morning, done by rote, against the non-habitual action of applying for a new job, spurred by some dissatisfaction that can almost certainly be traced into anger or indignation of some sort if you dig deeply enough.

The only real name that I have come across to describe this transformed anger is Great Mirror Wisdom. (If you know of any other names for it, please let me know.)

How about "motivation"? At the heart of most if not all motivation to take action, there's a dissatisfaction with the status quo which outweighs the subjective benefits of inaction.

The dominant RHP paradigms in which society and language have been stewing for uncounted generations leave a stigma on describing one's emotions as "anger". Thus a less-biased view of "anger" as a family of related emotions, divorced from that stigma, would likely include many if not all of the underlying motives to non-habitual action.

As an example, contrast the habitual action of getting up and going to work every morning, done by rote, against the non-habitual action of applying for a new job, spurred by some dissatisfaction that can almost certainly be traced into anger or indignation of some sort if you dig deeply enough.

"Motivation" might be a bit generic. For example, one can be motivated by something you like. You might find motivation via desire, for instance. Anger is triggered by dislike.

Good thread. Anger seems to me to be useful in the encoding of long term memory and attitude, but it depends on the mind's context for that anger - is it developed from a sense of unjustified attack? That can be very powerful indeed.

That's fair. I personally view liking something's presence as synonymous with disliking its absence, but there are levels of emotional subtlety which that logical definition probably misses.

Desire is magnetizing/drawing-in in its action, whereas anger is repulsive/casting-away in its action. The casting-away action of anger is what makes it effective in clearing the mind. Desire would be more useful in holding onto/concentrating on a single-pointed meditation.